Many lockdowns later, we are still Making Art!

 

I've started an MA in Fine Art, partly inspired by the joy I've had from this wonderful group, so I'm not getting much time to blog.  However, the group still continues.  I publish a theme every day, usually find a corner of the day for responding to it myself, and eventually get round to making collages of everyone's work which can be seen below on Instagram. 

art.everyday2020 

I've been working on this fabulous little moleskine watercolour pad I bought for nearly£10.  This seemed rather extravagant at first, but it's been a joy to use.  Small enough so that if  I'm really busy I can approach a little piece of work, and transportable everywhere, in a pocket if needed.  It's also such great paper I can happily paint with watercolours on both sides of the paper, and I sometimes use its centrefolds to create long or wide pieces of work.  It's nearly full now but I'll definitely be putting another one on my Christmas list!

Condiment

Monster

Spooky Graveyard

Underwear

Dream Catcher

Juicy

Chair

Windy

Day 48. Still Making Art.

June 24th, "On the Shelf".  Gouache.

It's day 48 of the #arteveryday group.  People are still posting their art regularly, and it's incredibly rewarding to see how they develop.  For myself it has kept me busy and given me a routine with preparation of the daily theme posts, and creating the collages of work each day.
My personal development with painting is coming along gradually, I watch tutorials sometimes on YouTube, and am really enjoying the new art materials I have invested in.

June 20th. "Bottles". The contents of the caravan drinks cupboard.  I really like the natural colours of these Windsor and Newton Cotman water colour tubes.

June 25th "Geometric".  Water colours and gouache.

June 21st "Solstice".  Water colours.

June 15th "Gateway".  Gouache.

June 17th "Building".

June 18th.  "Pink".  (For some reason I continued to write "May" on my paintings, when it was well into June!

Negative Space

June 11th "Negative Space".  Gouache.   I'd never tried this technique before, but after looking at some YouTube videos I thought it looked pretty simple... actually it was hard, but by the third layer of paint I'd started to get the hang of it.  It's about filling in the space around the image, letting it dry, then adding the next layer back on the picture, and filling in the space between again.  4 layers later (paint becoming stronger) and it looks pretty effective.  Would have been better with watercolours, but at this stage I was just considering buying some.

June 13th.  "Bubbles" building on the negative space theme, I used acrylics for this piece, but determined to get hold of some watercolours and mop brushes. 

June 22nd, "Spikey".  I finally invested in some water colours!  Inspired by brambles I did some more negative space practice.  The paints were recommended by a friend in the group and are really powerful, more like inks, and only cost £5 from Amazon.  The brushes have revolutionised my painting experience (£14, very thick but with fabulous pointed tips).

June 12th "Mythology".  According to the story of the Bearded Lake, tall green-clad fairy women come out of the lake with their pure white cattle to sun themselves on the bank.

After spending the morning researching the god Pan, including listening to a woman from Australia who claimed to be spiritually connected and actually chatting to the deity. (Just putting that there for future possible experimental film soundtrack). 

This is the group collage, and I was so inspired by some of the Welsh legends, I remembered the legend of Llyn Barfog about which I'd been commissioned to make a Welsh language film a few years ago.

June 23rd.  "Daisy" seemed like a nice simple theme, but I overworked this, and lost the simplicity somewhere along the way.

June 14th."Protest".  There is a lot of protesting going on, with statues coming down and the Black Lives Matter movement.  This image is inspired by Greenham Common womens camp, and the 14 mile human chain I, my friends and my parents were part of in 1983, protesting at American nuclear weapons  on British soil.

June 16th, "Smoke".  Portrait of my son who happened to be sitting outside our colourful shed smoking on this morning.  I used a new basic set of Windsor and Newton Cotman water colour tubes.

Releasing the Collective Creativity

May 25th "Layers".

So wonderful to acknowledge that this group is now responsible for unleashing so much creativity on the world

The membership has reached 96, with some people posting regularly, while others dip in and out.  There is no pressure to produce work, but there is a great atmosphere of support and encouragement from those in the group, and it is amazingly lovely to witness, as many members increase in confidence, experimentation and freedom as they interpret the daily theme.

26th May. The theme "door" inspired images posted by 24 different people.  

There were too many posted to squeeze into two collages, so just picked a few which worked beautifully together to create this Insta collage.

For myself the challenges have been many.  Thinking of a theme each night has been difficult at times, but I have treated it as an important part of my journey within the group, and consider numerous options before settling on one which sits comfortably with my understanding of the group, and which is hopefully surprising and inspiring each morning.

The images I choose and edit to go with the post are also given careful consideration, as I take pleasure in the curation of the group, and the routine and responsibility which I have created in the role.

June 5th "Weather".  View from my caravan of the dramatic clouds with their promise of impending storms as the sun went down.  The first time I used a new set of gouache paints instead of the old acrylics I'd been using.

The work I am producing continues to be a visual diary of not only my physical surroundings, but also the state of my mind.  These are strange times.  Not only the incredible situation of a  pandemic and resulting lock down, but now the horrible death of George Floyd, and all the  emotional unrest this has produced.  

May 30th "Spirals"  Mixed media.

May 27th "Dance".  This collage expresses well how joyful I felt at the time of creating it.  It was a lengthy bit of work for a daily exercise, but one I enjoyed immensely, and collage is a medium I want to explore further.

My response to "door", May 26th. The photo I took of the caravan door open at night was really beautiful.  I found it incredibly hard to paint.

June 3rd "Reflections".  For over ten years my family have spent time in a field in Dorset with a huge group of friends.  The time we spend there is blissful, and we discuss how we'll mentally transport ourselves back to Sundowner Bay whenever real life gets a bit shit.   This year it probably won't happen because of the virus.  

June 8th "Blue".  A self portrait which reflects the sadness and confusion I felt after the death of George Floyd, which brought so much  introspection and soul searching around the issue of racism.

June 6th "Tea Time". 

May 23rd "Faceless self portrait".  The first painting I felt really good about.  A rainy morning in the caravan spent recreating my own legs from a quick selfie taken with the camera on the floor.

Making art every day with a whole community is much more fun!

I'd forgotten all about this old blog I set up back in 2016 to inspire me to make art every day.

It must have been somewhere in my mind ever since though, because come the big lockdown of 2020 due to the Covid 19 virus, I've been curating an online art group which provides a daily challenge and a space for people to share their work, with some surprising results

Aims

Initially it was a random late night thought which turned into a post on Facebook, with the idea that if anyone else fancied joining me, perhaps we could inspire each other to make time in the day to do some art.

Implementation

The next day there was so much interest, I started a group.   That was on the 11th May, and I invited the people who had liked or commented on my original post, less than 20 people.  Gradually others joined, inspired by friends or the daily collages I share, and there are currently 72 members, many of whom like viewing the art, some who post occasionally and some who love the challenge of the daily theme and regularly create and share their work. 

There are 15 - 20 images posted a day and I create Insta-collages of the work to share on social media each night. I also prepare the next morning's challenge from lists of ideas people have suggested, scheduling the post for 7.30 the next morning.

The benefits of this group for me personally are multiple.

Day 1: Tree.  This was great.  It got me out there taking a long hard look at a tree rather than the instant appreciation and fast capture with a camera.

Benefits

The initial aim - to get me inspired to create some art every day - has worked brilliantly.   I'm getting braver with my medium - today used actual paint for the first time in 1000 years, but I feel no pressure to move or improve faster than I want.  Each day is a new challenge - a quick sketch is as valuable as many hours studying a scene.  The images I am creating are a personal record of the world around me.  They feature my life, my caravan, garden, allotment, things that matter to me, right now, in May 2020. I could not have hoped for more.

May 18th - "holes" mainly coloured pencils with a little bit of paint for shadow on floor and rose.  Pen for the holes.

My favourite time spent was this 4 hour drawing from 17th May, theme - "Pathway".  It's the view from the caravan, the space I've been thinking of as home since Easter, looking up towards the house, with Jake's tent (he's been sleeping there for a fortnight), the chimnea, the laundry basket, the wheelbarrow, the gorgeous new shed, the sunflower seedlings... it represents my whole life practically at the moment, distilled into a little drawing.

May 19th - music - using paints to create an image for the first time. It also inspired me to plant Jake's old guitar with nasturtium, sweet pea and geranium too, so double creative whammy!

Sharing the challenge with others has been simply wonderful.  Watching the development of people who have not found time in their lives for creating art, now doing it every day is absolutely amazing, and the atmosphere within the group is so layed-back that folk who have never tried making art are now joining in and loving the experience.  The focus is so much in the creation rather then the result, and every one is incredibly encouraging, it is a joy.

"Wheel" May 14th.  I really struggled with this one.  My technical drawing and perspective skills are pretty poor.  It was up at the train station in the woods and  really uncomfortable semi-laying on the hard ground to try and sketch this old railway truck wheel.  Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Witnessing people interact over their art is a beautiful and unexpected bonus.  Connecting people has always been one of my favourite things, and watching the natural progression of relationships within the group is another incredibly rewarding aspect.

May 20th "Shoes"

12th May "Laundry"

13th May "Precious" sitting on the caravan step hoping for inspiration, when the bees reminded me they were precious buzzing in and out of the flowers.

Cacen Nadolig